What the hell are all these other dots? This tells us nothing.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
nytopinion on
* Sources: Wharton Residential Land Use Regulation Index, Federal Reserve | Note: All data is for metropolitan areas, which include major cities and the suburbs that surround them. For the Wharton index, which is based on a voluntary survey, suburbs are better represented in the data than city centers.
* Created using Svelte and D3.
“There is good evidence that heavy-handed housing regulation is boosting home prices by restricting supply,” writes the economics professor Bryan Caplan. “Strictly regulated urban areas like New York City and the Bay Area have high prices and low construction, while more lightly regulated areas like Houston and Dallas have much lower prices and much more construction.”
Fuuu why didn’t we think of just doing nothing ?!!
elephantineer on
Does it makes sense to log the y -axis? I’d like to see more definition in the lower end of the scale
gvanbelle on
Correlation is not causation
mopedman on
People are making big assumptions about the direction of the causal pathway here.
brodneys on
Perhaps, although I believe the chart title as written may imply a causative relationship between regulation and price, where this may not exist.
It seems likely to me, at least on face value, that city size or population density would be a likely driver of (and highly correlated with) both of these factors.
defroach84 on
Why would you need regulation if housing prices are cheap? The only time you’d ever need some form of regulation is due to scarcity of supply and lots of demand. So, like, expensive cities already.
Siglet84 on
Higher population, lower supply with higher demand, more regulation.
Dry_Inflation_861 on
Regulation has an adverse affect. The more tax regulation the more it hurts the poor that can’t afford to get out of it.
JUMBOshrimp277 on
It very well could be the other way around where higher housing costs leads to more regulation, or it could not be connected at all
pink-aint-clean on
Wait this dumb graph was posted by the NTimes???
_CMDR_ on
If rents were allowed to increase with “the market” (aka collusion and racketeering) nobody except for the ultra rich could live in SF or New York. That’s why there are regulations.
lightbulbdeath on
If you are going to lift the exact same graphic from the article, you could have at least included the names of the other cities that are included in that graphic
InternalMud7489 on
Could also be that governments tend to regulate more expensive housing markets to try to make housing in said markets more affordable.
NAGDABBITALL on
It is so much cheaper to build houses that will insta-collapse in an earthquake.
Valle522 on
oh, of course this is the literal new york times account. when did journalism get so fucking bad
di745 on
I think it’s funny how people believe in supply and demand for all products except houses.
Amekaze on
I wonder if the factored in available land. Places like San Francisco and a majority of the New England area literally have nowhere to build. It makes sense there would be more regulations since they have to be strict with the little land they do have. Parts of Metro New York are litigating the use of the area above buildings. Ie some of smaller buildings selling the rights to the area above them to neighboring taller buildings so they can expand.
TheManIWas5YearsAgo on
I wonder how many other variables generate a nearly identical trend line.
arinamarcella on
A third axis would be construction costs, a fourth might be construction costs, and a fifth might be insurability, all to try to quantify the long term quality difference caused by the additional regulations.
Anecdotally, I’ve lived in older (less regulated) houses and newer (more regulated) houses and I can confidently say that newer houses tend to be far more energy efficient thanks to the additional weather sealing, more efficient ac systems, and updated wiring standards.
BatmanOnMars on
Not beautiful, and a NYT ad… Why not make the x something more tangible, average time to break ground after submitting a housing project? Average lot size requirement? Percent of land dedicated to SF zoning?
Basically anything other than a vague index that hides the weighting of elements in that index… It’s lazy!
You’re arguing correlation is causation while dismissing counterarguments offhand in the writing. Simplistic arguments need simplistic measures and an index is complex and requires thorough explanation.
And ffs. “It’s not demand, the population is not growing at a historically high rate.” Maybe not overall but you have millennials finally getting to a place where they want to buy at the same time that boomers and gen x are fully entering retirement! Millions of households competing for small starter homes to… Start… Or to downsize. And east coast states are the oldest by a lot where this is happening most intensely.
I can think of 1000 reasons why Houston has cheaper housing than SF and only one of those reasons is regulation lol. (Have you been to these places?!?)
23 Comments
What the hell are all these other dots? This tells us nothing.
[deleted]
* Sources: Wharton Residential Land Use Regulation Index, Federal Reserve | Note: All data is for metropolitan areas, which include major cities and the suburbs that surround them. For the Wharton index, which is based on a voluntary survey, suburbs are better represented in the data than city centers.
* Created using Svelte and D3.
“There is good evidence that heavy-handed housing regulation is boosting home prices by restricting supply,” writes the economics professor Bryan Caplan. “Strictly regulated urban areas like New York City and the Bay Area have high prices and low construction, while more lightly regulated areas like Houston and Dallas have much lower prices and much more construction.”
Read the rest of the story [here, for free](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/housing-deregulation-panacea-policy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IE4.yJ55.j0XzhEFC0YQj&smid=re-nytopinion), without a subscription to The New York Times.
Fuuu why didn’t we think of just doing nothing ?!!
Does it makes sense to log the y -axis? I’d like to see more definition in the lower end of the scale
Correlation is not causation
People are making big assumptions about the direction of the causal pathway here.
Perhaps, although I believe the chart title as written may imply a causative relationship between regulation and price, where this may not exist.
It seems likely to me, at least on face value, that city size or population density would be a likely driver of (and highly correlated with) both of these factors.
Why would you need regulation if housing prices are cheap? The only time you’d ever need some form of regulation is due to scarcity of supply and lots of demand. So, like, expensive cities already.
Higher population, lower supply with higher demand, more regulation.
Regulation has an adverse affect. The more tax regulation the more it hurts the poor that can’t afford to get out of it.
It very well could be the other way around where higher housing costs leads to more regulation, or it could not be connected at all
Wait this dumb graph was posted by the NTimes???
If rents were allowed to increase with “the market” (aka collusion and racketeering) nobody except for the ultra rich could live in SF or New York. That’s why there are regulations.
If you are going to lift the exact same graphic from the article, you could have at least included the names of the other cities that are included in that graphic
Could also be that governments tend to regulate more expensive housing markets to try to make housing in said markets more affordable.
It is so much cheaper to build houses that will insta-collapse in an earthquake.
oh, of course this is the literal new york times account. when did journalism get so fucking bad
I think it’s funny how people believe in supply and demand for all products except houses.
I wonder if the factored in available land. Places like San Francisco and a majority of the New England area literally have nowhere to build. It makes sense there would be more regulations since they have to be strict with the little land they do have. Parts of Metro New York are litigating the use of the area above buildings. Ie some of smaller buildings selling the rights to the area above them to neighboring taller buildings so they can expand.
I wonder how many other variables generate a nearly identical trend line.
A third axis would be construction costs, a fourth might be construction costs, and a fifth might be insurability, all to try to quantify the long term quality difference caused by the additional regulations.
Anecdotally, I’ve lived in older (less regulated) houses and newer (more regulated) houses and I can confidently say that newer houses tend to be far more energy efficient thanks to the additional weather sealing, more efficient ac systems, and updated wiring standards.
Not beautiful, and a NYT ad… Why not make the x something more tangible, average time to break ground after submitting a housing project? Average lot size requirement? Percent of land dedicated to SF zoning?
Basically anything other than a vague index that hides the weighting of elements in that index… It’s lazy!
You’re arguing correlation is causation while dismissing counterarguments offhand in the writing. Simplistic arguments need simplistic measures and an index is complex and requires thorough explanation.
And ffs. “It’s not demand, the population is not growing at a historically high rate.” Maybe not overall but you have millennials finally getting to a place where they want to buy at the same time that boomers and gen x are fully entering retirement! Millions of households competing for small starter homes to… Start… Or to downsize. And east coast states are the oldest by a lot where this is happening most intensely.
I can think of 1000 reasons why Houston has cheaper housing than SF and only one of those reasons is regulation lol. (Have you been to these places?!?)